


Bird With a Broken Wing

by vials



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Angst, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-16
Updated: 2016-07-16
Packaged: 2018-07-24 11:06:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7505905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vials/pseuds/vials
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When James loses an arm during a mission gone wrong, it's not just his career he thinks is over -- it's his whole life. Luckily for James, there's a certain Quartermaster who refuses to give up on him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bird With a Broken Wing

**Author's Note:**

> Bringing some fics over from the prompts I receive on my Tumblr account (v1als), so don't panic if you think you've seen this fic there, too.

“My arm’s gone.”

Q was typing so rapidly that he almost didn’t hear James. When he did register the words, he barely processed them.

“Just try and bandage it. Restrict usage,” he said quickly, his eyes scanning the screens in front of him. “On your right, there’s a service hallway. Go down it.”

A lot of grunting, some closer gunshots, another explosion, thankfully more distant. Then a lull in the noise, and nothing but James’s footsteps and breathing, both of which sounded uneven.

“I don’t think you quite copied me there, Q,” James said, his voice tight with pain. “There’s nothing left to bandage.”

Q blinked, feeling suddenly cold. “I’m sorry. What?”

“My arm, Q. It’s gone.”

Q turned back to the screens, hitting a few more buttons and quickly flicking through the security cameras. He found James in a hallway, leaning heavily on the wall. His left arm ended just below the elbow; he was trying to stop the bleeding with little success.

“Oh my god,” Q said, before quickly hitting several more keys. “James. Oh my god. Find cover. I’m sending in backup.”

*

For the first time in his life, James didn’t have the heart to try and talk his way into an early release from the hospital.

He supposed it was because there was no point. What would he do once he was out? His days as an agent were over. He was reminded of that every time he let his eyes drift down to the bandaged stump that used to be his left arm. There was no way he was going to talk himself back into field duty this time. Where did that leave him? Retirement? He would rather die. He should have run towards the next explosion after he had got his arm blown off. It would have been kinder. 

James leaned his head back and stared up at the bright white ceiling above him. He didn’t even have the energy to feel bored, which he supposed was a blessing for the nurses. He thought he should feel more concerned about that fact, but he didn’t have the energy. 

The only upside was that they had him on the good painkillers. He never had to wait long to fall asleep.

*

The worst part was the debriefing. It was so normal, so _standard_ ; James had done it so many times before, even after a prolonged stay in the hospital. This time he knew would be the last.

Q-branch was just the same as ever when James reported down there to sign the equipment logs. He’d actually managed to bring most of it back in one piece this time – probably because he hadn’t been out long enough to trash the rest. Usually it would have warranted a smart comment from Q, but the man was mostly silent this time, showing him where to sign and delicately avoiding staring at what used to be his arm.

“That’s everything, so I suppose I won’t keep you any longer,” he said, once the final piece of paperwork was signed, and James let out a vicious snort.

“What else do you think I have to do, Q?”

Q looked at him, floundering for a moment, before his shoulders slumped in defeat.

“Nothing, I suppose,” he said, sighing. “Bond, I –”

“If you’re going to say you’re sorry, save it,” James said. “I don’t think I can hear it from another person.”

“Well, I can give you that,” Q said, giving him a tired smile. “I was going to ask what you were going to do now.”

James stared at him for a moment. It hit him that Q was the first person who had asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, before he could stop himself, and the words settled over him like a cold chill.

*

It still hurt.

James could feel it almost constantly. He had told himself it was various other things at first – the cold, the heat, the damp. All of it was bollocks. He felt the pain as though the arm was still there. It was the cruellest thing. All the pain that was expected from healing, but with none of the payoff. It was still gone.

The doctors told him it was normal, and that there wasn’t all that much they could do until they worked out if it was chronic or not. James figured that was doctor speak for leaving it for a while, and that seemed to be what was happening. James medicated with an equal amount of prescription painkillers and non-prescription alcohol, which lead to a lot of unpleasant experiences. He didn’t think he had ever had hangovers like it, but waking up to a splitting headache was marginally better than waking up to the phantom aches where his arm used to be.

He supposed he should be getting proactive, thinking about his options, something along those lines. He didn’t have the energy for that, either.

*

Q worked late a lot. It was nice, when the office was quiet and the lowlights were on, the glows of the monitor screens a lot less harsh than the overhead lights. He found it calming, and moments of calm were few and far between for him these days. His job was a busy one, without his mind turning back to James every time he had a split second to let it. 

He had found a rhythm with his typing, and he managed to maintain it for an hour before his fingers faltered and he found the image grabbing him again. He didn’t think he would forget it for as long as he lived. Strangely, it hadn’t been the arm that stuck with him. Q had seen blood and gore before. No, it had been worse than that. It had been the look on James’s face.

Q sighed, leaning back in his chair and looking at the deserted office around him. It was pushing close to one in the morning, and he supposed he should go home. He just had to check something first.

*

It was a bad time for there to be a knock on the door. James had just woken up after spending a night of quality time with his booze and his pills, and he wasn’t feeling in the slightest bit up for company. Still, the knocking was persistent, and it was cutting through James’ headache, so he eventually decided to get up and go and tell whoever it was to fuck off.

“Do you have any idea what time it is –” he began, but he broke off when he saw Q standing there, bundled up in one of his hideous cardigans and overly large anoraks.

“It’s four in the afternoon,” Q said. “Can I come in?”

“What are you doing here?” James asked, and Q held up a plastic grocery bag.

“Isn’t it obvious? I bought you some food. I figured you weren’t taking much care of yourself and apparently I was right. I could smell the booze from down the hall.”

More out of bewilderment than anything else, James stepped to the side, letting him in. Q paused for a moment, looking around the living room with the slightest air of disdain. James couldn’t exactly blame him. The place was a bit of a mess.

“I was going to clean later,” he said, and Q looked at him, blinking.

“Of course you were.”

James found himself following Q through his own flat and to the kitchen, watching as Q put the groceries on the counter and begin rummaging through it.

“I had no idea what you liked to eat,” Q admitted, stacking some cans. “So I just got a bit of everything. It’s all pretty simple stuff. Soups, ready meals, just stuff you can throw in the microwave and forget about.”

“Who sent you?” James asked, after a moment of confused silence. “Was it Moneypenny?”

“No,” Q said, looking at him. “Though she’s concerned about you too, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you had a visit from her in the near future.”

James continued looking at him, suspicious. Q eventually turned back to unpacking the bag.

“I don’t know why you’re so surprised,” he said, once he was done. “Does it not occur to you that we might be concerned? You suffered a life-changing injury and MI6 has been depressingly quiet without you skulking around. Where do you put all these, by the way? I don’t want to go rooting through your cupboards.”

“Just put them anywhere,” James said. “There’s plenty of room.”

By plenty of room, Q supposed he meant all the room. James’s cupboards were practically bare.

“Bond –”

“ _Don’t_ give me the health lecture, Q.”

“How do you expect to recover if you’re not eating?”

“Recover?” James asked, his voice harsh. “You think I’m going to grow another arm?”

Q stood still for a moment, his shoulders tense. After a moment, they relaxed only slightly, and he turned to look at James, smiling apologetically.

“You’re right. I’m sorry. I should keep my nose out of it.”

“There’s nothing left,” James told him, his voice still bitter. “There is no end goal, Q. I can’t go back. I’m not working towards anything, so why should I bother?”

“There’s always a place for you,” Q told him, firm, and James held his gaze. 

“Where?”

*

James woke suddenly, his heart thudding in his chest, his arm white hot with pain. He grabbed at it, convinced he could see blood covering the bedsheets, a flash of bone. He almost yelled but it caught in his throat as the room snapped into focus around him; the blood was nothing but shadow, the bone his imagination. The sun was low in the sky and he knew it must be evening. He had been asleep. It had been a dream.

Most of it, anyway. The pain where his arm had been had dulled, but it was still present, strong enough that James couldn’t forget about it. Sometimes he thought it would be better if it didn’t hurt anymore. If there were no reminders. This was like picking at a scab.

He stared up at the ceiling and watched the light creep across it as the sun moved down behind the buildings around him. There was an ache in his chest and he thought he might be hungry, too; for some reason the thought of the untouched soup in his cupboards made something that might have been guilt twist in James’s stomach.

To his surprise, he dragged himself up and went to the kitchen.

*

He was a quick learner. He had always been thankful for that. Doing things one-handed was beginning to grow less inconvenient and more just _different_ , and James sometimes found there was a sense of satisfaction in pulling off some of the more complicated tasks. The first time he had tied a tie with some quick, neat twists of his hand he had actually given a triumphant yell. 

He paused for a moment on his way out of the door, slightly uncomfortable – his clothes always looked so strange, with nothing to fill out the left arm – but he brushed it off. He would get used to people looking, he supposed. At least he would have fun with the story, if anyone ever worked up the courage to ask.

He hadn’t spent too much time staring into a bottle the night before. Still an amount that most people would likely deem unhealthy, but James didn’t exactly have normal standards for such things to begin with. It was just as well he had gone easy, too – he had forgotten how bright the overhead lights were in Q-branch. He was still squinting slightly when he found Q, who looked nothing short of endearing with his sleeves rolled up and his fingers covered in oil.

“That’s a good look,” Q told him, and James blinked rapidly.

“Could say the same to you,” he said. “Cut me some slack. I’ve grown used to dark flats and overcast sunlight is about as bright as it gets for me these days.”

“Well, it’s nice to see you’ve come out of hiding,” Q said, brisk as ever. “Though I have to wonder what finally brought you back.”

“I remembered a few things,” James said, and Q blinked at him, evidently a little apprehensive.

“Oh?”

“I suppose I owe you a thank you for the food,” James said. “And also it occurred to me that no one had restricted my security access to this place. Why is that?”

Q just smiled.

*

“You don’t have to do this.”

It was all James could think of to say, after a silence that had already lasted far too long.

“I want to,” Q said, simply.

“Surely you have better things to do.”

“I have this incredible thing called _spare time_ , James.”

James snorted. “That’s a lie. You never have spare time.”

“Well, I make time,” Q said firmly. 

“This is quite an investment.”

“I’m aware.”

“And my chances of ever returning to the field are still slim. And by slim, I mean practically none.”

“I’m aware of this, too.”

“So why?”

“Because you seem miserable with one arm,” Q said, looking at him with the slightest hint of a smile. “And there’s something deeply unnerving about you being miserable.”

James wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. Thankfully Q didn’t seem to expect him to say anything at all. He was already pointing various things out, talking so quickly that James could barely keep up.

“It probably goes without saying but it’s not going to look as obvious when it’s fitted. This is just all the internal workings that you can see here – obviously I need you around to make the casing, as it’s got to match your skin type and tone and we’re going to do that with a synthetic material developed from your actual skin so that’s going to be interesting, seeing whether or not it works… if it doesn’t it’s not too much of a worry considering we can make some pretty realistic stuff down here so I suppose we’ll have to see. If everything goes well it’ll be neurologically linked – it won’t act exactly like an actual arm because that’s just not possible right now but you never know, in a few years and with a few upgrades, I imagine things will have changed. It’ll take a bit of getting used to as it’s a precision-based thing so I wouldn’t recommend doing anything too complex at first and _certainly_ not with anything that can break, but as you get used to it you’ll find there’s not much you can’t do. It’ll be a bit frustrating at first, I’m sure, and probably a little odd considering it weighs slightly more than the average human arm but I’m sure you’ll adapt to it eventually. And it will need regular upgrades and maintenance if you want to see what it’s really capable of, so I’m afraid you’ll be stuck with me in that respect.”

James had been smiling at him for some time; Q eventually realised and broke off, clearing his throat.

“I should probably stop rambling on,” he said. “I don’t even know if you—”

“I want to,” James said, and Q blinked at him before he quickly smiled, nodding.

“Good. I’m glad. I have to admit I’m quite excited for this.”

“Q,” James said, and Q cleared his throat again, looking at him. James thought it was taking the man some serious effort to refrain from fidgeting.

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

James didn’t think he had ever said the words so sincerely. A slight redness appeared on Q’s cheeks before he ducked his head slightly, adjusting his glasses.

“Well, you’re – you’re welcome, of course, it’s no trouble, really. Anyway, if you want to come over here, I can show you the blueprints.”

Q headed back across the lab to his office; with a smile, James pushed himself away from the table and followed him.


End file.
